#or else u end up just stuck and get so frustrated when u can't draw

[gg-selvish]

please share your analysis

i talked about this on twitter so forgive me those who are gonna see me repeating myself but that clip is just so fascinating if u take a step back and compare it to the way dnn interact with each other because theyre all friends and theyre all in love or whatever but their duo dynamics are so drastically different from each other and the way they balance out as a trio is like the whole reason i ship them. every duo works despite how the tropes/dynamics/dare i say behaviours are unique yet the trio is like perfect balance

anyway. let's talk about george saying 'wait'

george has self-imposed rules of how he interacts with people and how others interact with him. we learned this from everyone in the uk and customer service workers who have talked about him where he can be a sweet people pleaser while still being a little spicy but he does know how to be normal. then he gets to florida with people he's incredibly close to and comfortable with and all we hear is 'george sucks' 'george is a menace' 'george is crazy' so as we all know people are multi-facetted, but i think george is especially multi-facetted and even multi-faced at times. there's like a different george for streaming, videos, in call, uk irl, florida/la irl, and then everything we don't see is a whole other george i can't even begin to think about

but im getting distracted. the wait. the dnn.

when george is talking to people he's close to, especially dream, sapnap, and now karl as they've gotten closer, he has more rules. like karl and sapnap pointed out in banter he has long pauses in between sentences and gets frustrated when he's interrupted when people don't know they're interrupting him so he just gets louder and more persistent and it drives sapnap especially crazy. it's so fascinating to me how things that dream is comfortable with an appreciates about george drives sapnap right up the wall. because he still loves george so much, you can tell it from the way theyre glued to each other and talk about each other constantly even if its negative. if he didnt like him he wouldnt be sharing stories about him constantly, yknow? he's mad and ranting but theres this lingering fondness under the frustration that brings me back to 'we wouldnt be friends if we werent already friends' and a lot of people took that as 'i dont want to be friends with you' but i read it as 'we're such a good friends you can do anything to me and no matter how pissed i get we're still gonna be friends because i decided 7 years ago that we're stuck together'

sorry sorry. the wait. the wait.

george does this all the time in calls. we see him do it with solo streams too. he reeeeeeeeeeeeally draws out goodbyes because i think he hates them. he says hes leaving and gonna end then reads pieces of chat or shares another anecdote then says hes gonna end again and doesnt again.

for dream this is amazing. he loves listening to george no matter what and entertains all of his weird mannerisms easy as breathing because he's a simp for him and infatuated and we all know this. a telling example of this is when theyre streaming and george does this exact thing

g: im leaving

d: ok bye

g: wait *says something else*

d: *waits and listens*

and then they get sucked into another conversation and go on or they move to an offstream call to continue what they were talking about because dream would listen to george read the newspaper and be enthralled. we know this. dnf is real. but sapnap is different

sapnap is george's favourite thing to needle. he pokes and prods at him until he's riled up and frustrated which is puts george on the moon with amusement because it makes him laugh and it means sapnap cares about him. their bickering back and forth is pure quality time, and when george gets quiet and starts to get soft it's sapnap's turn to make him uncomfortable. this is what they do... they find each other's tender underbelly and wait for the right moment to deliver a blow. it's a love language and a reminder of their dynamic which is fighty and spicy and always on their toes. they have their soft and sweet moments but their preferred way of interacting is lightning speed fighting back and forth to feel alive

but the wait.

george did exactly what he does with dream in that clip. says he wants to leave and is told not to leave and says hes gonna leave anyway so sapnap, who isnt dream, goes 'ok dude bye' and then HE WAITS. HE WAITS FOR GEORGE TO SAY WAIT BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE DOESNT WANT HIM TO HANG UP YET HE WANTS HIM TO WAIT. HE KNOWS THE RULES. george says wait and sapnap hangs up.

sapnap is satisfied with himself for putting george in his place and george doesnt get that from a lot of people 'has anyone ever said no to you?' sapnap has. sapnap does it all the time. sapnap is a firm hand on george's scruff and keeps him from playing mind games like an expert zookeeper and it's absolutely fascinating to watch.

i would love to see a moment like this in a threeway call and see how it balances out. it's literally like a lab experiment to me

[capillaryspice]

Unpopular opinion rant incoming:

I did not enjoy Baldurs Gate 3

Before anything else I will admit I am biased, as strategy turn based games aren't something I'm usually into to begin with. I mostly ended up playing it because my partners and a friend are SUPER into the game and wanted to do a 4 player run. I do have 30 hours on a solo run I tried to get used to the game with, so I have a decent bit of experience with how it's supposed to run as a single player but I'm not judging companion stories or anything because I haven't completed them.

I do understand why people like BG3, and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade for a very critically acclaimed game, but I do have some thoughts that I just need to get out of my head, so if you like the game and don't wanna hear me complain about it just scroll on ahead. If you do want to hear me complain, I'd love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts, because genuinely I've not really had anyone to talk to that hasn't been head-over-heels for it. (Actual thoughts under the cut)

-----------------

With that out of the way, for starters BG3 is a very impressive game. From a technical perspective, from a voice acting quality perspective, the sheer amount of tiny tiny details, etc... it is IMPRESSIVE. Too impressive, I'd almost have to say. Because, despite being impressed by it, I did not have FUN playing the game. For all its details it doesn't draw me in. For all the technical marvel, it's just too janky. It's all of the rules of DND and none of the immersion or fun

I would love to have had a functioning camera position that didn't give me whiplash whenever a new character in the combat of 20+ NPCs decides to do so much as shuffle to the left. It feels like pulling teeth when trying to select/interact with anything, god forbid a reaction happens while you're trying to attack and you just completely lose the action bc the interruption to movement pauses everything and screws u up. I'd love to be able to jump without going through two menu screens and a map to just hop over a gap(I'm never complaining about the Dark Souls jump being too complicated ever again). Also everything moves so slow, I would kill for a fucking Sprint button.

I would have liked anything approaching a streamlined combat system that didn't take a long ass time to set up a move that takes six seconds to play out, and then wait for ten minutes literally doing nothing while the rest of the NPCs in initiative whip the viewpoint around and get it stuck in walls and corpses so I can't even see what's happening while I can't do anything for the rest of the round

A lesser gripe, but just a bizarre choice to not do: Id like to hear the character voice I chose in character creation for cutscenes, instead of just background ambient lines. Like, if the last dragon age game (from 2014 mind you) can have a voiced main character with multiple voice options, this new game that has unique voice lines for every goddamn squirrel on the map and ALREADY PAID VOICE ACTORS TO VOICE THE MAIN CHARACTER TO BEGIN WITH can probably afford to do so. Hell, I'd like some background music that isn't just the tenth rendition of Down By The River in a different key. The bard music is all gorgeous, why couldn't they have reused some of those compositions as ambient music for different locations?

This is a MASSIVE game, and what they've put into it is definitely admirable, but like. Not in the ways that make a game breathable or immersive? The choices in where they've decided to dedicate the anal level of detail seems misguided from a just general player standpoint; There's some gorgeous settings in the game, but I was distracted every time by getting frustrated that I couldn't even get a more-than-vague look at any of the scenery I actually enjoyed because the camera is so limited in its angles. So I can't take a good look around what should be a beautiful temple that I'd love to see closer, but I can individually inspect every moldy apple and tax form on a random dinner table instead. It's a vast open world, but the character models have very clearly defined paths they have to stay within. The amount of unique NPCs is insane, but the mechanics themselves TREAT them as NPCs(i.e., resurrection rules), and they don't react to PCs unless ur doing Violence or Crimes (even og skyrim had NPCs have comments on if u weren't like wearing clothes, for instance). Every shelf and bag and nook and cranny are searchable, but that gets overwhelming very quickly as you have to choose between taking like an hour of real time to clear a cluttered area and possibly find something important but more likely just end up with a bajillion rotten carrots, or move on but have the anxiety of knowing you've possibly missed something vital. There's a million options you can take at any moment with any object or character, but there's rarely anything indicating what will be vital later for general world stuff. But then with the main plot (the Emperor, Raphael, the crèche) it felt very railroaded in the sense that TECHNICALLY you could try and choose between outcomes, but your choices don't actually matter because you die if you choose The Wrong Option (or end up in effectively death sentence combat) and will end up where they want you to go regardless.

BG3 isn't a game I want to spend time playing; it's not a world I can wander around and appreciate the beauty of and get lost in the soundtrack or the environments. The whole combat system is incredibly frustrating to manage, and just feels like Hurry Up And Wait. I'm not gonna knock the romance parts of the game, I've heard good things and haven't gotten far enough in any of em to have an educated opinion on, so really the only thing the game has to offer in spades OTHER than romance is replayability. Which normally I would say is a good thing, but for how long of a game it is and how non immersive the gameplay and world feel, it really just ends up being a game of fucking around and seeing how many things you can get an alternate dialogue for or create new stats around. Like, this is great for completionist folks who love collecting achievements and making the most busted crunchy math-based builds possible, but Baldurs Gate 3 to me just isn't a game I can sit down and have Fun(TM) relaxing and playing.

It's a game that I feel absolutely missed the forest for the trees.

So anyways, essay complete. I've only slept like 6 hours total in the last three days so a lot of this may or may not even make sense. But on so much sleep deprivation finishing this game and realizing I was just frustrated with it instead of actually feeling accomplished for having finished it, it was the final straw and I just needed to get the thoughts down somewhere

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

[messedupessy]

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY @thefloatingstone​  (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ❤

I don’t even remember when your birthday was, think it was last month, but hey I succeeded in making something at least yeah xD this is also a pic that I owe ya from the 2018 colour palette event which I didn’t finish, as I decided to smack those two pics into one so to save myself time and santiy pft!

But yeah gods am I happy with how this turned out! I had too much fun revisiting this guy, I only drawn him properly once back in flipping 2012 which was also a birthday present to you Puffy haha xD damn we have known each other for seriously so long! But anyway, I did my best to just draw and while some things looks a bit off here and there, the lines are messy and so on, so did this turn out so good I am so happy with it, and had so much fun fooling around with it, I based this a bit on one of the comic covers I found while looking for refs, and I am so happy with this!

Anyway, Happy belated birthday again Puffy! ❤ I love and adore you and you always teach me something new pretty much everytime we talk haha!

Also, here is the old pic I did way back in 2012, because I can haha!

While this pic is almost 10 years old by now, so do I still like it allot xD he looks so very anime and shit but he still looks good, so overly messy and this was when I used to scan my pics in and messily colour them somewhat and yeah the colouring job is a mess, still he looks really good still which I think is great!

[lotusjwy]

"Just leave me ALONE" for Xicheng? Preferably if LXC says it JC? Preferably in public or in front of wangxian and the juniors ? E.g. JC is the only one, who notices LXC is having a bad day and he more or less subtlely tries to get him to talk ? But LXC tries to be fine cause he is out of seclusion so he can't still have bad days'?

But if you have another idea do that! no pressure ! Thanks in advance !

hello there, the way this is so specific has been killing me for DAYS 😂  I had to send screenshots to my friend bc of how specific it is dude, like I love that you know exactly what you want bc it makes my brain not have to work as hard, but BRO dskjfhkasd why do u like to see my boy suffer So much 😭😭😭 

i hope this lives up to ur expectations!!! 🥰

It had been a long day. A long and tiring day, so if he lost his temper, he couldn’t be blamed, right? He just wanted to go back home and play the flute, perhaps sleep a little, but he was absolutely done with spending time with everyone else. So, why did he find himself still in the company of so many people? Why was he still sitting here with Wangji, Wei Wuxian, Jiang Wanyin and a handful of juniors? Why?

This was all Wei Wuxian’s fault, he was the one that insisted everyone spend more time together. Xichen already saw plenty of Wei Wuxian, Wangji, Sizhui and Jingyi, as well as often seeing Jiang Wanyin and Jin Rulan, due to sect business. If anything, the only person here that Lan Xichen rarely saw was Ouyang Zizhen, and it wasn’t as if he’d spent much of the day speaking to him.

Jiang Wanyin had taken it upon himself to seat himself down next to Lan Xichen, talking to him, hoping that he could get to the root of why the other had been acting differently. “You’ve been quiet all day, which is completely fine, I get that. Sometimes everyone is a bit too much to handle, but Wei Wuxian insists on family bonding, whatever the fuck that me-”

And he just would not stop talking, he’d been talking for so long, all day, when would he stop. “Just leave me alone. You keep speaking to me as if I’ve shown any indication that I wish to continue this conversation. You’re quick to call Wei Wuxian a chatterbox and an annoyance, yet have you ever looked inward?!” When he was met with a stunned silence, he realised something was incredibly wrong.

Oh. Oh no. He had said that out loud, hadn’t he? Well, he couldn’t take it back now, and he had wanted to be left alone. It wasn’t his fault Jiang Wanyin wasn’t taking the hint. Xichen did feel a little bad, when he saw the hurt expression on lJiang Cheng’s face, that abruptly was wiped from his face, only to be replaced by a blank face.

“Apologies, Zewu-jun. I appear to have overstepped.” He stood and gave the other a stiff bow, before leaving the room, not looking or speaking to anyone, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.  

Wei Wuxian stood awkwardly after his brother had left the room, wanting to follow him out, but knowing that the other probably wanted to be alone right now. He also knew that he shouldn’t be the one going to ensure he was okay, “Xichen-ge…”

“I am aware, no need to scold me.” Lan Xichen’s voice was terse, knowing that everyone in the room was staring at him in shock, possibly all wanting to scold him for his behaviour.

“Jiujiu was only trying to make sure that you were okay. Talking helps sometimes, you know. He rarely reaches out to people like that, but he did to you.” Everyone here knew his uncle’s temper, just as well as they knew how much he cared, if anyone here didn’t know that, then they shouldn’t be here. They didn’t belong here.

Lan Sizhui put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder, “Jin Ling, should you be saying this here?” He knew that Jin Ling was cross with Zewu-jun, but he didn’t want the other saying anything that he may regret later on.

“It’s nothing everyone here doesn’t already know about him.” He scoffed out, his voice dripping with disdain towards Sect Leader Lan. How dare he take his uncle’s kindness for granted.

Xichen tuned out the remainder of the conversation, thinking about the mess he had put himself in. It wasn’t that he disliked Jiang Wanyin, quite the opposite actually, and yet here he was near yelling at him in front all of their friends and family. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been stuck in his thoughts before he realised that he was being spoken to by Jin Rulan again.

“Well? Are you just going to sit here and wallow in your stupid misery, or are you going to go apologise?” There was a fiercely protective look in the younger’s eyes, showing that he’d physically fight the other, even if it meant losing, for his uncle’s honour.

“Jin Ling!” Wei Wuxian sent a sharp look to the younger, inwardly cursing that Jin Ling seemed to have inherited his mother’s fierce protective nature. He felt the same, but he also had the sense of knowing that saying everything you felt could backfire on you within seconds.

“Don’t get mad at me for being mad at him! He was being an assh-” the rest of whatever he was going to say being smothered by Lan Jingyi’s hand, which was conveniently blocking any other derogatory words that Jin Ling may want to speak.

“Alright, alright, young mistress, it’s okay. Let’s calm down now. He’ll go apologise now.” Lan Jingyi gave his sect leader a pointed look, as if telling him that if he didn’t leave to go find Sect Leader Jiang right now, then he would release his friend and let him unleash his full anger at him.

With a stiff nod, Lan Xichen left towards the direction Jiang Wanyin had stalked off to. He found the other leaning on a tree, staring up at the sky, seemingly lost in thought. He slowly approached the other, contemplating how to best bring attention to himself.

“I-” He jumped slightly, when he was cut off, not realising that Jiang Cheng had even noticed him approaching.

“Save it. No need to apologise, I know you were bullied out here.” His voice blunt and to the point, void of any emotion, as if he were trying to protect himself. 

Xichen was stunned silent, not knowing how to respond to that. He had been told to come apologise, so it wasn’t as if he could refute that. “Oh.”

Jiang Cheng sighed and shook his head. He had guessed that his nephew and brother had made the other come out here and apologise, but he was hoping that Lan Xichen had wanted to come out on his own accord. Evidently not. And why should he? It’s not as if Jiang Cheng was someone that was important to Lan Xichen. All he’d done was annoy him today.

Lan Xichen walked closer to the other, offering him an apologetic look, “whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong.”

“I find that hard to believe.” How could he be wrong, when all signs pointed to his conclusions? He’d been annoying, when he hadn’t intended to be. He’d been compared to Wei Wuxian of all people.

“I’m sorry.”

And for what it was worth, he did sound very apologetic, but Jiang Cheng didn’t seem to believe it. “I said save it.”

“You did. However, I do genuinely mean it.” Xichen looked at the other, focusing on how the other was mindlessly fidgeting with Zidian. I’m making him uncomfortable. “I was told to come out and find you, yes, but I would have apologised on my own. I wouldn’t have left it li-”

“Don’t worry, Sect Leader Lan, I won’t let this hinder our sect relations. I’m not so petty so as to do anything that was affect either of our sects, for a personal matter.” Jiang Cheng cut off Lan Xichen, yet again, seemingly realising why the other had gone out of his way to come out to apologise.

“That’s not-” Lan Xichen was beginning to grow very sick of being cut off midsentence.

“I won’t interfere with any of the trade agreements we have existing already, nor any that we may broker in the future.” Jiang Cheng was rambling now, thinking of anything he could, to ensure Lan Xichen that he didn’t want their sects to fall out with each other. “Oh, we were discussing having our junior disciples have an excha-”

“Would you shut up?” If the other would just stop sprouting out useless information, this conversation could end less painfully than it needs to be, instead Jiang Wanyin seemed to want to draw it out.  

Jiang Cheng blinked in shock, his mouth falling open. That was the second time he’d made Lan Xichen burst out in anger like that. Wow, he must really hate me.

“If you would just let me speak! I do not dislike you, nor do I think that this should affect our sects standings with each other.” Xichen’s voice was strained, as he struggled to keep his frustrations with Jiang Wanyin at bay.

Jiang Cheng simply nodded in response, “of course not.”

“You don’t believe me.” Disbelief coating his voice, he stared at the other with narrowed eyes.

“I…” he struggled to find a way to word this, without being insulting or rude, “I believe that you do not wish this to affect our sect standings. Nor do I.”

“But you believe that I dislike you.” He put it bluntly, not enjoying the circles they were seeming to go in this conversation.

With a shrug, he nodded. There wasn’t much else he could say on it, it’s not as if he could make his own beliefs go away with the snap of a finger.

“And nothing I say could convince you otherwise?” Xichen was close to losing it at the other again, not knowing how to change the direction of this conversation. “Not even our past relationship with each other, prior to this evening?”

“Sect Leader Lan is a kind man. He gives chances to those who do not deserve them. I simply overstepped my boundaries tonight.” Jiang Cheng was looking up at the moon, his voice void of any emotion as he spoke.  

With a sigh, Lan Xichen moved to stand in front of the other, needing to capture his attention somehow. “And sometimes he simply has bad days, that have nothing to do with those around him.” He said it lightly, but his face showed that he was being serious. It really had been a bad day that had come an unfortunate end.

“But I didn’t help.”

“No, you didn’t. But I should have verbalised that, instead of ignored you.” Thinking about it for a moment, he added on something else, “which is why you kept speaking to me. Other times your company and conversation has kept me from my bad days, it was only safe for you to believe that it would be okay today. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Hmm.” He only hummed in response, as if he didn’t want to accept that he played no fault in the situation.  

“I don’t know what else I can do to convince you otherwise. I promise you that we are okay. As long as you can forgive me for speaking to you like that.” Right. Apologising was what he’d come out here to do in the first place.

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes and looked at the other incredulously, “of course I forgive you, I was being fucking annoying and sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.”

Lan Xichen shook his head almost immediately, “I’d argue out of everyone we’ve been with today, it is  a place where you are welcome to stick your nose into. I should have communicated that I wanted silence, it wasn’t your fault.”

When Jiang Cheng didn’t respond, Xichen sighed and nodded, “fine, I can see that this will take some time to move past. But can we do that? Forget about tonight, learn to better communicate with each other? A relationship wouldn’t be possible otherwise.” He quickly turned away from the other, choosing to stare up at the sky, instead of seeing the disbelief on Jiang Cheng’s face at what he had just said. He had more or less confessed his feelings.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes widened in shock as he processed what he had just heard, his cheeks beginning to burn at the implications. He coughed into his fist, “uh, yes. We can do that.”